strum the chords because you want to
out of the many things i have picked up as a way to efficiently deal with my emotions, one is doing things for the love of them.
in the most recent occurrence, when i was not feeling too good, i picked up my big A3 sketchbook and a pencil with no intent of drawing or writing anything specific. i remembered the previous night and how my bed looked from the top view. i thought it was worth sketching. i drew it on a small part of the big paper. a lot of it was still left blank. i didn't mind it.
the beatles played in the background and the light was dim in my room - just how i like it. i could see the shadow of my face and hair on the sketchbook sheet because of the yellow light placed behind me. i picked up the pencil and traced the shadow of myself. i ended up writing a couple of lines from the lyrics of two songs that i liked in that random array of songs:
talking about similar instances, i play the ukulele i bought a few months ago to simply-- play. i don't find enough time in my routine to learn the instrument. so i just strum the chords when i want to and because i want to.
i remember a friend telling me how humans like to label things like sketching, painting, playing an instrument, singing, dancing etc as "skills" or "hobbies" and that comes with an expectation of you being good at them. how can you call it your hobby if you are not good at it, right? birds on the other hand chirp because that's their nature. you could argue that humans and birds are no comparison. but i am a firm believer in the notion that we share more in common with animals, birds and insects than we acknowledge. we are bound by the commonalities that bring us all together as organisms.
if you will, try not to limit yourself and your happiness by attaching your self-worth to the things that are simply supposed to be your second nature. let some things be for yourself. let some things be there just to comfort you. the lesser you attach to your self-worth, the happier you become.
if you just take a pen and paper or an instrument and draw whatever you want or play what you feel like, you will end up with something beautiful. remember - beauty is not universal, it is perspective. if it is beautiful to you, it doesn't matter what it is to someone else.